


The most important lesson

by myka1231



Category: Naruto
Genre: Alternate Universe - Yakuza, Kabuki - Freeform, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-06
Updated: 2016-08-06
Packaged: 2018-07-29 15:24:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,606
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7689820
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/myka1231/pseuds/myka1231
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Iruka is a kabuki actor and Kakashi goes to watch one of his shows.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The most important lesson

**Author's Note:**

> Prompt 6  
> Genre: AU  
> Scenario: Iruka is a kabuki actor and Kakashi goes to watch one of his shows.  
> Imagine an AU where person A of your OTP is a kabuki actor/actress and person B goes to watch one of their shows. They fall in love at first sight, but they don’t know who this person is. Person B tries to meet them and to their surprise, it’s person A. What happens is up to you.

**Kabuki elements:**

Onnagata: Male interpreting female roles.

 _Hanamichi (floral pathway):_ Stage extension, a pathway through which actors enter and exit the stage.

 _Kuroko:_ A black dress stagehand who changes the set with the actors on scene.

 _Oshiroi:_ white base made of rice powder.

 _Kumadori:_ Mask to highlight facial lines or expressions.

**Yakuza elements:**

Oyabun (foster father): Leader of the clan, also known as kumicho (family head).

 _Kobun (foster child):_ Subordinates that owe allegiance to the oyabun.

 _Saiko Komon:_ senior advisors working directly under the oyabun.

* * *

Hatake Kakashi, the prodigy son of the oyabun White Fang, was the youngest leader of a yakuza clan at the age of thirteen. Despite, or in spite, of having a tragic childhood, by his seventeenth birthday he was a successful oyabun, infamous all around Japan as a yakuza legend and as the genius who made the Hatake clan bloom into a new era: honorable and strong, loyal and dutiful to the Senju clan. Above all else, Kakashi was known as a stern and fair leader, an oyabun capable of the cruelest punishment to traitors, but willing to fight for his sworn family to the last consequences.

However hard and tiring his duties were, when saiko komon Jiraiya-sama asked Kakashi to come to a play with him -claiming it was research for his next book of the Icha icha series- Kakashi accepted. That’s why the two of them were in the theater watching an historical kabuki piece performed by a company whose onnagata, a young actor named Umino Iruka, was gaining a fine reputation in Tokyo.

The play itself was good, entertaining and poetic, a fact that Kakashi didn’t note in great detail, because Iruka shone among the performers with his own light, engaging the audience in the play maiden’s sorrow and hope. Kakashi was bewitched the moment he saw Iruka on stage, entering the hanamichi with grace and pose. The yakuza’s eyes couldn’t leave him for a second as the story played along.

The play’s end, marked by the audience’s ovation, made Kakashi come back to his senses and while drowning in the noise, he decided a backstage trip to congratulate the company was in order. That would give him an opportunity to meet this onnagata, even if his hopes for a good outcome from the meeting were dim. After all, he was well aware he was simply in lust... like few times in his twenty-eight years of life.

Jiraiya approved the play with enthusiasm and, as a regular spectator of such performances, his words were testament of the company’s talent. Kakashi took his words as a true critique, being himself less of an expert in the matter. However -even acknowledging objectivity wasn’t his better feature- to him the early performance was the best play conceived by mankind. Putting in place the appropriate amount of nonchalance and detachment his personality was known for, Kakashi explained his wish to Jiraiya, who was pleased and willing to talk with the correct people to grant this request.

With a great deal of apprehension, Kakashi entered the theater’s changing rooms, meeting Iruka for the first time, a remarkable occasion often recalled with laughter in the years to come.

Iruka knew the subtle marks to recognise a yakuza, no matter the man’s station among his clan. But any regard to the infamous reputation of this yakuza, Iruka did not care to find out. The actor couldn’t contain how pissed off he was with the man interrupting his post-performance ritual -the process which allowed him to regain his sense of self and to make a peaceful transit from the actor’s frame of mind (a burdened maiden, as the case required) to everyday Iruka.

Kakashi was taken aback at the annoyance reflected in the actor’s countenance, adorable with his orishoi and kumadori still painting a part of his face, but without letting it show, he greeted Iruka respectfully.

“My name is Hatake Kakashi. I was very intrigued about you after seeing your play. It’s nice meeting you, mister?”

Iruka didn’t answered immediately, not registering the question amid the man’s words.

“Ah, sorry. I’m Umino Iruka. I’m glad you enjoyed the play, but there’s nothing intriguing about me. I’m just an actor, an onnagata specialist, that’s all. Now, if you excuse me, I’m in the middle of changing.”

Just like that, Iruka was storming his way out of Kakashi’s presence. Which was weird, because Kakashi couldn't remember ever being so blatantly disregarded. So with a chuckle of perplexed amusement, Kakashi retreated for the moment, knowing that meeting the actor again was fate more than fact.

…

Kakashi’s idea of courting someone was questionable at best and better classified as stalking when one saw it with a clear head. It was a wonder Iruka didn’t go insane during the months he spent with yakuza trailing his every move.

At first he didn’t notice anything different about his life, but sometimes he thought that people looked wary around him. When he asked Izumo and Kotetsu, his friends and fellow actors,they shifted stiffly and avoided his eyes as they told him about the yakuza party following him and threatening everyone standing too close to him or looking him for too long or in a “bad way”.

Iruka was perplexed by the revelation and self-conscious of the details in his habits that often seemed weird to others. Like the weekly visit to his parents’ graves and the long talks he had with them in order to keep them in the loop about his career. Or the fact he had a favorite tree in the park near his apartment and how he liked to pretend it was his actor partner while practicing scripted lines. And his habit of indulging himself with ramen after every successful performance.

He shouldn’t have worried, because when Kakashi was reported by his kobun in charge of intel recollection -more often than not Genma and Anko, despite being opposed to the order and very loud about doing it regardless- around target Umino Iruka, he was delighted to hear of this endearing quirks that were often the cause of a squeezy feeling in his gut making him week in the knees.

Genma and Anko’s reports a month after his first encounter with the young actor told him the target was now aware of his men following him. Being the fine leader he was, he noted the unease in the eyes and stance of his men. With a derisive snort he told them to man up, after all, Iruka was an actor not a hired assassin out for blood. No change whatsoever came with Kakashi’s reassurances, but the yakuza tasked with researching every like and dislike of the oyabun’s love interest were wise enough to follow the command without a single comment about the sense of certain doom ahead.

And doom came to pass when the young actor was fed up with the stalking committee trailing after him. When Genma and Anko came to their leader’s presence to report with white faces and blue hair, Kakashi couldn’t help the laughter that left him lightheaded. And his clan could accept a love interest if he kept making this somber and tormented Hatake head fill the compound with laughter.

When Kakashi knew Iruka’s favourite food was ramen and his most hated one was mixed rice; that his favourite colour was green and favourite flower were violets; that his most read book was The Tale of the Utterly Gutsy Shinobi along with the quirks already disclosed, he felt the time for a move to be made in order to accomplish the mission objective -ask the actor to date him- was now.

Preparations were immediately made and less than a week after that, he “casually” met Iruka in some park, near a particular tree. Dusting off his own acting skills, Kakashi approached the focused man.

“What a pleasant surprise seeing you here! I’m Hatake Kakashi, by the way. We met some time ago after watching your play.”

Incredulity marred Iruka’s expression at this blatantly made up “casual encounter”.

“Are you serious? You’ve kept yakuza following me for the past two months!”

The angry glare directed to Kakashi made him extremely nervous and fidgety. He understood the right way to gain the actor’s interest was being honest, which wasn’t in his common repertoire. But he headed forward like the warrior he was.

“Well, I was trying to learn about you. I kind of liked you since the moment I saw you on stage and I wanted to ask you out. You just seemed so out of reach.”

Iruka was left speechless and flailing for a moment. His softening look, prompted by finally understanding the awkward man’s good intentions- and twisted ways- dissipated the heavy atmosphere closing on them. Iruka mock slapped the other man’s shoulder and put his best scolding but accepting tone to let the alleged “scary” man know what day was good for him and to meet him at the same spot on the park beside his favorite tree and to be on time.

“And that’s the way you get to know someone, not stalking him or making your fellow men do it!”

With a fond smile -despite his best efforts to repress it- Iruka walked away from the yakuza leader standing frozen with a ridiculous dorky smile.

After that moment, there wasn’t force in the world which could tear them apart.

…

In the time they spent dating each other, life was, in turns, a roller-coaster about to break apart and a peaceful meadow rocking with the springtime breeze. Always full of movement and colour.

Yakuza idiosyncrasies sometimes clashed with Iruka’s views and believes and Kakashi not always understood the company’s inner workings. Compromise and negotiation was key to have a balanced relationship between equals while moving both careers along.

Some quirks developed in their dynamic, such as the way every time one of them felt insecure or awkward, they met where they started dating under the tree's shadow to smooth things over. After all, they learned that if they wanted to work as a couple, there was a delicate system of giving and taking to prefect between them.

To the friends, co-workers and clan fellows around the couple, they made the other a better and happier person. The proverbial red thread had linked them together and it was a good match.

Love gave Kakashi another perspective in life, allowing him a more compassionate approach to leadership and a better understanding of human nature -befitting comrades and rivals alike. The fierce will to protect his clan was still there, but now he had the edge love gave him to be stronger.

Iruka’s acting career was a different issue. The moment the first picture of the couple appeared in the tabloids, Iruka was accosted by journalists, simply curious people and everything in between. Which could be good to a beginner actor waiting for a chance. But Iruka’s choose of kabuki acting wasn’t favoured by scandalous headlines or spotlights. The classic style’s audience was more mature and conservative, so the public assisting to his company’s plays was reduced in number, as more and more gossip surrounded him.

That’s when the plus side of the yakuza world had a concrete impact in Iruka’s life. With few pointed words and knifes, the media dismissed itself at a measured pace. And more suspiciously, the theater was full at every function with notorious tattooed people. Official word of the Hatake oyabun, seconded by every clan member, was that they didn’t know or were related to the reason of the sudden popularity of kabuki among yakuza people.

Iruka still managed to catch the members’ talk about how the debts owed to the clan were being paid in tickets and attendance to a specific play. Once Iruka heard this, he was more watchful of the functions’ audience and the flashes of steel appearing as soon as the play was over, making a roaring chaos of the applauding mass.

In the end, he couldn’t stop Hatake men from doing his job -including taking charge of the mess that had sent his work upside down-. That’s why he took all the antics of his new fans with a grain of salt and humorous bickering with his co-actor friends.

Eventually life returned to its normal course and memory of the kabuki-yakuza mix taking hold of his days was retold in stories to share at casual meetings and friendly dinners.

Eventually, Kakashi and Iruka -welcomed among the yakuza- were at the lead of the Hatake clan, one known as the better oyabun anyone ever saw and the other as his spouse, a loved and renowned actor of classic kabuki theater with international presence after taking some acting roles in successful movies.

What more could a man wish for?

…

The Hatake compound’s mornings were loud with people preparing for the day ahead or coming off of a night’s job. All of them were attended by a warm man, taking note to see if everyone was healthy and feed before wishing them a good day or good rest.

All in all, the clan always followed Kakashi’s orders but they did everything Iruka asked of them -and sometimes things he didn’t even ask for.

Around a small sized table were four people enjoying breakfast. The lean and powerful form of the clan’s head stood beside the more sturdy and solid figure of his spouse and there were two children with them, the adopted and more recent family additions.

It was a cold winter day when the reality of a lack of heir to the Hatake name was brought to Kakashi’s attention. Solutions of almost every nature were presented by the clan counselors, but no one wanted Kakashi to take the necessary steps to produce one as every member adored Iruka and this felt like betrayal.

The stroke of his famous genius was a timely one, because Kakashi realized that a child with his blood, but without a drop of Iruka’s, couldn’t be a legitimate heir and there were always children waiting in orphanages for some family to claim them. Iruka loved every being belonging to the clan, from the pack of dogs to Kakashi himself, so with his easy and caring ways and his naturally gentle handle of children, Iruka would be thrilled of adopting potentials heirs of their own.

That stroke of genius, three years later, took the form of Naruto and Sasuke, whose presence at the breakfast table filled the space with talk. Both were five years old boys with a promising future, a lot of energy and a penchant for causing mayhem to the world around them.

Their parents decided that training them as soon as possible was in everyone’s best interest, putting their huge amount of energy to safe use. That’s why they spent every morning practicing kata, building strength and endurance with Kakashi and dedicated the afternoons learning to count and to read with Iruka. They also learned from Iruka to change their looks with make-up and improvised costumes and become evil kings declaring wars and loyal knights protecting the princess. They even learned to be the princess when they felt brave and confident enough. More often than not, Genma, Anko and Raido were forced to take part on the plays they performed with Iruka’s help for the whole clan.

Kakashi never thought he would end up as a family man, but very few times things resulted as one expected them to be. Above all of the things he could wish, he hoped that Iruka and himself made good enough parents to teach their children the most important lesson: love will always give you strength.


End file.
